When I was a young kid I lived in Norwich and spent virtually all my pocket money in Backs Records, Norwich’s legendary independent record shop, in the City’s famous Swan Lane, now occupied by the Whiskey Shop.
There I was first thunderstruck by the stark graphic and image of anarcho punk and indie/protest.
The seven inch record covers were displayed behind the counter in an enormous and ever changing grid of the most potent, political, graphic and human distillation of anger, wry humour, irony and revolt I had ever witnessed.
On my Saturday visits I would stand gawping for ages in the middle of the shop, entranced at the artwork that completely covered the walls, lost in an alternative world of hope, humour, anguish and rebellion, a million miles from school, home and the doom laden news of riots and impending nuclear war.
After choosing one or two, often based on the artwork, I would rush home to play them. The first anarcho-record I bought was Bloody Revolution/Persons Unknown by Crass and the Poison Girls in 1980, then Reality Asylum by Crass and onto bands like Zounds, Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians, Dirt, the Dead Kennedys etc.
I had previously gone for the UK Subs, the Pistols and the Clash as well as more commercial stuff but when I started shopping in Backs it didn’t take long to work out that I could get more from my quid or two pocket money if I bought records on the Crass label.
They were 70p or even 45p when other singles were at least a quid, sometimes as much as £1.20,
With CRASS I could sometimes even afford two singles a week and would get a couple of amazing nihilistic monochrome posters by Gee Vaucher & co to stick on my wall, (which grew week by week to look more and more like the shop) plus the music was brilliant and educational and I could read the backs of the poster and read loads of amazing info exposing the bullshit of the system, which started me reading about politics, greed, history, genocide, state violence, control techniques, brainwashing, propaganda, direct action methods etc. and led to my humble but inspired origins as a graffiti writer.
Then one Saturday I went into Backs with my pocket money and saw a WHOLE ALBUM for £1.75!!!
They were normally at least three or four quid which meant saving up or birthdays. It was a compilation called Bullshit Detector, on CRASS of course and had an amazing 25 tracks on it, all by different artists when most albums had nine or ten. I bought it on the spot.
When I got it home and put it on the record player and started reading the massive fold out cover I was quite amazed by the variety of tracks screaming, poetry, the Jazz 78 gramophone manipulation and drunken ranting, and home taped weirdness and guttural snarling, there were some absolutely great tracks on it, some were pretty awful but one of my favourites was Napalm by the Disrupters from (incredibly, as I thought at the time) Norwich.
Me and my pals soon found out from their elder brothers who were ‘proper punks’ (unlike us snotty part-time herberts) that the Disrupters were releasing their first single ‘Young Offender’ which we all went and bought from Backs.
I carried on buying their vinyl through the eighties long after I moved near London; just in time to catch the birth of UK hip hop and London train graffiti.
Anyway……thirty one years after Bullshit Detector, I discovered they’ve reformed, still sound amazing, still writing great songs, sounding as tight as ever, have lost none of their morality or venom and are back out gigging and with a new album, so they were kind enough to do to an in depth interview for the current issue of LSD magazine, along with loads of artwork, and their in-house poet Prem Nick did an interview also and kindly contributed some poems and rantings for the piece!
It’s great, not only to read all about such a brilliant, honest and dedicated band, but to have a reminder of the grass-roots spirit ‘urban art’ actually came from, as narcissism, privilege, profits, con-tricks and posturing, festooned with false flags and propped up by censorship and control that would leave Stalin reeling, leave us with a corporate phenomenon which may well prove to be regarded as the single most outstanding example of hypocrisy and mass manipulation in human history.
Success dependent on the organised brutal suppression of the work of other artists, while maintaining a veneer of respectability is utterly unsustainable therefore transient, therefore no success at all.
Yet that has become the accepted ‘modus operandi’. Here is my compendium of wisdom on CENSORSHIP , as published in the current issue of LSD Magazine, preceded by an introduction, and followed by a piece of film….
The battle against censorship in art in these times, is a long and lonely road beset with hazards. However it is a battle that has found me, not I it; and one I accept alone.
However certain giants of oldskool graffiti and now the broader underground too, have recognised my plight and shown me tacit support and thus added to my strength to continue my personal struggle for artistic freedom, and there I have found something of the true spirit of human empathy and expression.
However it must be said that even without such support I would gladly continue my path.
By accident of birth I found myself able to draw and paint, by longing for expression I found myself on the streets with crude anarcho stencils then by the mid eighties the train yards with my dreams on metal in motion and colour, then acid house parties with ultraviolet paint, then in the studio with oil and easel where I laboured for 20 years amidst a stack of books and immersed in the study of the Old Masters, then back to the streets.
Here I found many from those train yard days too had moved on, and like me still had little voice in an art world supposedly freed for “the people” by the new wave of ‘street artists’ if you believe the PR, as I did for a while, but in reality I found the art world in the stranglehold of a voracious cartel.
They saw its’ potent symbols, identity and lexicon merely as a vehicle for profit, be it of narcissism or cash, and saw myself and others like me who held their meaning dear, as a threat to be pushed aside, silenced and ignored, or charmed, duped, bribed, gifted and flattered into acquiescence.
In my search to show my own work outside the confines of this closed shop which rejected my every inroad outright, found me allied with other oldskool writers who shared my alienation; those who shared aspects of my story, continued to make art and thus identified with my plight.
At that point a journey was embarked upon, in the true DIY ethic of the punk rock I grew up on; to build something from the ground up and set up our own gallery, then a notice was pinned to my wall warning me against such an act, which was ignored, then a car was driven at me. How scared the cartel must be of the reality of art to act this way!
London writers of our generation experienced something no other artists ever have or ever will.
Not only were we the first proper ‘wave’ to saturate the trains but we were, in these heady days witness to the most concentrated awakening of consciousness in the history of the planet, even stronger in its’ pure intensity than the hippy explosion of the 1960s….acid house, the full unforgettable syncopated sensory plunge into the inner world and holographic universe in its’ purest form.
With the biomorphic shapes and ever mutating motion of graffiti lettering and clattering of wheels on tracks resounding in our heads we were then thrust into the hallucinogenic meltdown squelch of the Roland TB303 synth and relentless kick drum, in an ancient shamanic dance, now laser lit, that broke down our very DNA and reassembled it in under the strobe as brave new beings.
The B.P.M of Jack the T.A.B now forever in our bones, was a dance that accessed the ends of the universe and the building blocks of life itself and brought the shapes alive in a synaesthesiac time warp of sound which we reassembled as art.
Think Drax’s abstract wholecar hallucinogenic zigzags and loops that shook, rattled and rolled with the funk of the underground, possibly the most viscerally stunning and ‘primeval’ of these utterances which propelled the magical art of the ancient sacred cave screeching and clattering through the tunnels of the Circle Line, think of Fuels epic, heroic, mythical and prolific visions of numinous otherworlds, Nu Age lava lamp styles, and spontaneous quasi-religious poetic scrawls which set apart his hard won crown as an unbelievably prolific outsider and fearless groundbreaker, of Cherish’s aztec jelly-mould styles, Acrid’s spontaneous abstract panel pieces, Mean’s ‘dancing’ letters and experiments in spatial distortions of perceptions of the street and in the flowery spiralled tags and squashy throw-up letters that abounded all over the system from everyone from Bus One to Drop One….
Graffiti and the ‘invisible world’ go hand in hand from the earliest engravings on caves, but in London in 88-90 as the golden ages of acid house and train graffiti emerged side by side the two cross pollinated in a style never seen and have left a legacy that grows, albeit often hidden, to this day.
These writers I held in awe, some I painted with then, others I paint with now, others I’ve never even met, they and many more are those that awoke my curiosity and unwittingly guided my path, that lit my way inspiring my search for my own voice in art just as much as the surrealist and visionary painters such as Ernst, Matta or Blake. They all had the vision and pluck to rise against the conventions of graffiti or the art of their time and take it further, into the ‘otherworld’ as opposed to contemporary stylistic convention or current profusion of stage managed saccharin gimmickry, as did Blade and Futura in their own way in New York.
Some of these writers, those with the inclination are continuing their investigations, imaginations freed by the movement, electricity and industrial energy of dirty London train graffiti, freed by the spectacular inner pyrotechnics and spiritual inner joy of “The Experience” still working out their visions….others like a fine wine or lively cheese have matured, taking their influence from their life in the outer world , the enlightenment of travel and the information age and their ruminations on our culture, their continuing legacy, or of literature and their epiphanies in Eastern mysticism or the delirious ravings of the romantic poets…
The spiritof the individual is that which drives such people and which gives life to the pioneering uncategorisable works that are created in the awakening’s wake….we are many and we have many creative years of our lives ahead of us….
Is it street art? Maybe not, as the current use of the term has lost its’ value, but we were and still are street artists, the original street artists of this generation..
Is it fine art? It can be, yes, but freed from the stuffiness of the academies, the hierarchy of art’s cartels, and the rules of the classics.
Is it graffiti? That depends where it is and what its saying, but we’re all writers, whatever medium we use and its’ fluid dynamics once it met ‘jack the groove’ leave a legacy and flow that carries into whatever art we may make…
London’s scene uncovered a timeless dynamic and fused it with mass transit, lighting a fuse in many a mind. that meanders through the infinite illumination of the information age and the dusty tomes of arcane lore….
Is it a movement?
No! It’s a continuous and ancient undercurrent in human culture that took on a hearty mutation and new direction and after incubation and ponderance among many individuals is rising its’ head.
We need no labels, but we do need awareness, if we are to transcend the current serpentine hierarchy of control with its’ false flags of freedom, empathy and anarcho-meritocracy under which it aggressively infects, maligns and attempts to ‘own’ and thus censor every new growth of culture with its’ covert influence, contrived infiltration and complicit continuation of their monopolist values which celebrate denunciation of free thinking and original expression in favour of imitative, non-challenging, anti-cerebral, overtly commercial empty gesture and fake posturing.
That is what I was, (at the time unknowingly) trying to challenge by setting up a space in Brick Lane. I got out of train graffiti in 1989 and while still painting the odd piece I pursued the hallucinogenic mythical experimentation, as I re-emerged and hooked up with old comrades and certain old heroes who I now count as my friends, it confirmed my suspicions how much there was so much more to come from this dynamic still, how much was being ignored and deliberately censored, how we writers, far from the way they had been portrayed by the street art cartel were often the most intelligent, honest, open minded, poetic, enlightened and the most socially and politically aware.
All the things elements the collective wore on their sleeves as commercial false flags we carry in our heart as our life and purpose….
Any schism is not graffiti versus street art, it is of the authentic versus the synthetic, the individuals against the collective, freedom versus censorship, spirit versus mammon.
I attempted to escalate this spirit to the next logical level, into physical space, as an accidental by-product in my own search for somewhere real to show my own discoveries in paint, a place where the phenomenon that gave my work life and from which new ideas continually emerge, could be appreciated, contextualised and given due consideration for everything it was, is and will be for many years to come.
But such expression did nothing to glorify the cartel so was banned.
While I would not consider myself an Objectivist and would most definitely consider myself a proud (though discerning) altruist in opposition to many Randian thinkers, I maintain this speech given by Howard Rourke in the courtroom scene from The Fountainhead to be one of the most remarkable edicts of truth in the history of expression.
“Uprock is an all day Aerosol Art and Hip Hop event. Featuring legends of the UK graffiti scene Fuel, Prime, Cry, Doze and Merc with sounds from Kane FM.
It is at the Boileroom in Guildford just off the A3.
The artists will be painting on boards outside the venue while inside will be an old skool hip hop fest! Uprock is family friendly with all ages welcome!
The event stars at 11am and is free to get in throughout the day up till 8pm when it is then £6. Check us out on Facebook or the Uprock Website.
See you on Sunday!”
Fuel
Prime
Doze
Merc
To get those oldskool vibes flowing in here’s a video panorama I made of last years Olds Kool hall of fame bash, featuring work by Merc, Doze and Prime who will be painting at the event….
…aswell as pieces by Etch, Rage, Robbo, Choci-Roc, Jet, Shades, Keen One, Insane, Me, Disk, PIC, Rage, Shuto, Drax, Don, Part 2, Skore, Kilo, Daze and many more…
I made it a few months ago but never got around to posting it anywhere so here it is…..all power and strength to Robbo 484 -get well soon mate.
Here’s a trailer for a major new documentary coming out soon about Street Art and graffiti in Brick Lane, looks to be interesting, featuring a broad array of artists.
I will be talking about lots of different stuff, providing an alternative point of view and doing some painting too…..a certain old school King of London train pieces will be making a unique appearance and ranting also, and will feature his current canvases which are actual portals to other realms, as the best art often is, so really don’t miss this one…..
The people behind it are Six Oranges who usually make films about human rights issues and have just released a wonderful documentary called ‘Tres Tristes Tigres’ (Three Sad Tigers) about poor Bangladeshi construction workers who get ripped off, which is absolutely excellent, if heartbreaking. I’m lucky enough to have a preview copy, its doing the rounds of the festivals at the moment and has already been nominated for a Goya award (the Spanish Oscars) good luck guys.It’s also been awarded the Best Short Documentary at the VII Certamen Documental e Video Secuencia Cero (Vigo, Spain).
“Construction boom in Middle East brought 832,000 workers from Bangladesh. The labor abuse and illegal contracting, accepted by Bangladeshi government with tolerance of International Labor Organization, has brought thousands of broken families and hopes of workers destroyed for good.”
This is a portrait of a street and an area – as seen by artists, particularly street artists, and others who live and work or even just visit here. I wanted to shoot a social documentary which would frame the street, its life, and the complex web in which it operates. I wanted to hear the area’s "official" stories. And of course the other side of those stories.
I started filming in the fall of 2009. Seems a long time ago. And so this little trailer is a quiet announcement that we are serious about the final edit now…Watch this space I guess. Filmed in London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid. Yeah.. Brick Lane is a long street.
Thanks to all the artists. For your participation and most importantly for your art.
I did all the artwork for Arcadia, one of the highlights of Glastonbury 2010, the Festival’s 40th Birthday, the hottest on record and some say the best yet…
For two weeks we relished the bliss of perfect English midsummer in the most mystical part of the country, Glastonbury, where ley lines meet and legends were born, in The Vale ofAvalon, the ancient mythic gateway to the heathen goddess; a place of pilgrimage for millennia.
I was onsite with the team of militant revolutionary dreamers and genius engineers known as Arcadia, easily the best sound system around and quite possibly the greatest show on earth.
Their meticulous attention to detail and fantastic organisation extends to the busy site canteen who kept me fed and watered with an ever-changing array of fresh veggie delights and herbal teas….
I painted anarcho punk slogans since 82 then graffiti at the birth of UK hip hop in 84, onto London’s tube system in 86 through the golden age of train graffiti moving to acid house backdrops in 89. The nineties and new millenium saw me painting at traveller squat parties and Reclaim the Streets protest raves. Throughout the quiet renaissance of classical, surreal and visionary oil painting I was at the easel and fused my skills back with graffiti in Shoreditch in 2009 then onto MuTate Britain with the Mutoid Waste Company in Ladbroke Grove under the Westway…
Now in 2010 I feel glad to have played a small part by painting for the next underground zeitgeist, one which takes influence and energy from all those phenomenon and more, but boldly maps out a new frontier that is purely its’ own…ARCADIA.
Like all underground revolutionary movements the gold rush is for the inner treasure. The ultimate reward is the accomplishment of the dream and the actualisation of the idea. At Glastonbury 2010 Arcadia surpassed all expectations and reached dizzying new heights of inspiration, engineering, teamwork, sculpture, music, lighting, pyrotechnics, performance art and energy as this film shows….
The Build
When we arrived onsite the Afterburner stage was still in its early stages, the ‘legs’ of the spider are actually scrap from customs xray machines that used to scan containers and lorries. Pure genius…
The core of the beast is expertly manoevered into place…
…and it shows its’ face.
In keeping with Arcadia’s militant branding and apocalyptic atmosphere I did the line-up board using their trademark stencil lettering, and carefully distressed the fragments of plane for that ‘hauled out of the swamp 5 years after the crash’ look….
…with lots of help from capable hands.
The entrance arch is a couple of modified plane wings, possibly from a glider, it’d been rubbed down to the bare aluminium so to keep the burnished metal intact on the ‘pipes’ I used Belton’s amazing transparent black spray paint to get the relief modelling without losing the wonderful texture which gleamed from underneath as the sun caught the metal…The design was finalised between myself and Pip Rush and based on carvings on an ancient Aztec temple….
Here’s a video of the build in progress.
The line-up boards go up….
I then cut back over the black with Belton’s burner chrome to get a contrast against the aluminium and carefully painted the pop rivets and ‘crazy paving’ seams by hand.
Pip was keen to use my ‘Circuit Splat’ style so I modified it to pure abstraction with a vivid tribal background on some pieces of aeroplane scrap to hang behind the massive ‘Arc Bar’, the sun was pounding down…
After painting ‘til twilight the lights go on on the new Afterburner for the very first time and the eerie entity blinks into life.
Next day the crew finish building ‘stage left’ so I can start the piece.
Across the field the punk tent takes shape
After being branded with the Arcadia logo by their prop maker and effects guy, Simon, he begins work on the dirty-metal-effect background for my piece….
…and I start blocking in the arrows. Some respectful inspiration drawn from amigo Keen One here, but in 3 dimensions and distressed with a strong Elate/Arcadia twist….
….and lots of rivets, seams, gleams, glints and the Arcadia logo in the centre….
….everyone seemed to really like this.
Here the graffiti began to fuse with scrap art by Simon and Sam…
Finally after sweat and dedication, blisters, sprains and minor sunstroke Arcadia opened on Thursday 24th June 2010 to the public ….
…who went nuts….while many crew take the opportunity to sleep until rested before re-emerging to enjoy the weekend.
My art at the Arcadia Arc Bar ‘scuse the poor shots
You could feel the heat on your face from the other side of the field. Experience Arcadia, they’re doing amazing things.
I’ll let the Lords of Lightning sign off this post as only they know how.
All pictures of Arcadia build by me and Jenny apart from a few select shots of Afterburner show and Glastonbury used with permission Creative Commons and taken by Luke Blackmore, lusciousblopster, mark-vauxhall, medalliamagpie, Tangentical, fussy onion, Al Green midlander123 and bfirsh; thanks to all.
Massive thanks to Pip and Bertie and all Arcadia crew.
When I was a young kid I lived in Norwich and spent virtually all my pocket money in Backs Records, Norwich’s legendary independent record shop, in the City’s famous Swan Lane, now occupied by the Whiskey Shop.
